FAQ

Do not hesitate to call one of my legal assistants during the hours of operation. You may contact (416) 901-4179. If they cannot provide an answer for your situation, please leave your contact information and a detail message and they will pass your message to me. I will be happy to contact you myself.

Yes but you can not get a court to order a Divorce until you have been separated at least one year.

A court will not grant a divorce to someone who has not been separated from their spouse for at least one year. You can start a court application for divorce prior to the passage of one year from the time that you were legally separated. However, if you try to get a divorce order in less than 12 months from the date of separation, the divorce would be technically invalid. At worst, this could also invalidate a subsequent marriage.

This does not stop you from starting a court application to deal with divorce or other issues. You just cannot actually get your divorce until you have been separated for at least one year.  

If divorce and property are two issues that you want to deal with, you must bring your application in the Superior Court of Justice as opposed to the Ontario Court of Justice. This strategic  decision requires a number of considerations that need to be thought through. 

The Superior Court of Justice in Ontario is potentially a more expensive forum to litigate matters than the Ontario Court of Justice.  On the other hand, sometimes you will get a fairer hearing in the Superior Court of Justice than in the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto and Case Conference appearances are often resolved more quickly in Superior Court because you are the only matter scheduled at a certain time of day in front of a judge. In Ontario Court, 10 matters may be on the docket from 10:00am-1:00pm and you may wait for hours to get heard by a judge. The lower court is very busy. Sometimes the judges are just trying to move matters quickly through the system, rather than give you the time for a fair hearing.  

If you are still living together and the couple still operating as a single social and economic unit and you are not sure if you want to get separated permanently, it makes no sense to start a court application.  You need to really know the relationship is over before you should start a court case. 

You can be considered to be separated while still living under the same roof.

If you are legally separated from each other but living under the same roof the court can grant a divorce 365 days after the agreed date on which the parties were separate and apart.  If you and your ex spouse do not agree on the date you separated, this issue will have to be determined by the court.

The separation date is very important in family law because you cannot really properly calculate net family property (for married couples) until you determine the separation date.

The essential regime of Net Family Property is that you are allowed to deduct the assets you had at the date of marriage from the Assets in your name at the date of separation. The basic theory is that if either party got richer than the other during the marriage, that spouse should have to share their relatively greater increase in net wealth with their spouse.

In order to determine whether or not the parties are actually separated if they’re living under the same roof, the courts will look at a number of factors 

Among the factors they will consider are:

• Do you sleep in the same bed? 
• Do you eat meals together?
• Do you go out to social events in which you appear as husband and wife? 
• Do you go on family trips together? 
• Do you sleep on separate floors in the same house? 
• Are your finances integrated? 
• Do you file tax returns as separated or married?

The most common custody orders or agreements are for sole custody or joint custody, although split custody is also possible in certain circumstances. See Custody in this website.

Things you should focus on in a dispute where both parties want sole custody of the children:

1. Focus on improving your bond with the child and emphasizing what strong ties of love and affection you have with the child.   Spending lots of time with the child is crucial, as is exercising custodial duties such as going to parent teacher nights, taking the child to doctor’s appointments, etc.

2.  Try to always put what is best for the child (or children) first.

3. Make a clear plan for the child that includes being thoughtful about fostering the child’s education, relationships with other family members (including your ex) and addresses any special needs of the child.

4. In some cases the stability of the family unit and the length of time you’ve lived in a stable home environment will be important considerations for the court. Stability of family arrangements is particularly important for young children.

5. With older children, what the children want is very important. Sometimes, the Office of the Children’s Lawyer will need to be appointed to put the children’s view and preferences before the court. 

Not everyone can win custody of their kids just by getting a good lawyer.

A good lawyer can provide you with honest advice about whether you have a reasonable chance of succeeding in a custody battle before you launch into it and begin spending thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on a battle that you might not win.

The best way to ensure that you can win a custody battle is very dependent on a number of factors.  

With younger children, under 6 years old for example, the single most important factor in a custody battle is what lawyers called “the status quo”. In other words, what has been happening up until now. 

If since the birth of the children, they primarily lived with their mother and their father saw them only one or two days a month, in the vast majority of cases the courts will decide custody in favour of the mother, or primary caregiver.

The older the children are, the more the children’s views and preferences will take precedence over the status quo.  Usually if a child is over 12, their views and preferences are the single most important factor for the court to consider.

A 13 year old who has always lived with her mother but would rather live with her father may well be able to sway a court to have custody (or primary residence) awarded to the father.

For children between 6 and 12, their views and preferences continue to be increasingly important as they get older.   However, it is not always easy to get the children’s preferences before the court. You can seek the appointment of “the Children’s Lawyer”, but the Children’s Lawyer is not appointed in all cases.

Your rights will vary with the facts of your case, such as how long you have been married or whether you cohabited or shared tasks in the marriage, including who was the children’s primary care. 

If you want to know your rights on separation you should discuss your rights with a family law lawyer. Many family law lawyers, including Guy Hunter, are willing to give a free consultation. Guy Hunter provides a free half-hour consultation

Call Guy Hunter at 416-856-4179 or email him at ghunter@lawyer.com.

In most separation or divorce cases, Guy Hunter suggests there are 8 major issues for people who are married and have children under 16 years of age. Those issues are:

1. Divorce
2. The Matrimonial Home
3. Net Family Property
4. Custody
5. Access
6. Child Support 
7. Spousal Support
8. In cases of violence, a restraining order

Some of these issues may be irrelevant in your case, such as in the family where no one has any assets at the end of the marriage.  This would make Net Family Property unimportant.

If the children are over 18 there still may be a  need to provide child support but the court will not be concerned with custody and access, and therefore you don’t need to fight about these issues 

People who were married but have no children usually only have 4 or 5 issues to consider.

1. Divorce
2. The Matrimonial Home
3. Net Family Property
4. Spousal Support
5. In cases of violence, a restraining order  

People who were not married and have no children usually only have 1  – 3 issues to consider.

1. Any trust or property claims

2. Spousal Support

3. In cases of violence, a restraining order  

People who were not married and have children under 16 usually only have 5 -6 issues to consider.

1. Any trust or property claims
2. Custody
3. Access
4. Child Support 
5. Spousal Support
6. In cases of violence, a restraining order

Whatever your situation, Guy Hunter can, in a first consultation, usually explain your basic rights under each of these issues.   Guy Hunter provides a free half-hour consultation. In most cases, the first meeting will take 60 to 90 minutes and so you may well pay for the time over 30 minutes. His fee is usually $300.0/ hour, unless you are entitled to Legal act. This is a very reasonable rate given his almost 20 years of practice. 

It depends.   A separation agreement can be cheaper and often provide a more detailed set of arrangements between the parties compared to going to court.  If you and your ex are reasonable and can make compromises on issues fairly quickly, a separation agreement can be substantially cheaper than a court application.

However, in order to have a separation agreement that stands a fairly good chance of being upheld in court, both sides need to have lawyers or Independent Legal Advice, and often quite a lot of financial disclosure.  

Lawyers have a duty to be advocates and can sometimes make negotiations take longer as they have a duty to try to get you to be self-interested.  You can override them by providing clear instructions, but most lawyers prefer you to selfishly assert your economic rights. They will usually also encourage you to make fairly fulsome financial disclosure.

Some separation agreements are concluded fairly quickly where one or both of the parties just want a deal and are not too concerned for their self-interest.  Some separation agreements take years and one party or their lawyer will never budge an inch and you would be better off in court where a judge will give you their opinion and often this helps a deal to be made. Many lawyer are tough negotiators but they get reasonable in front of judges. 

[One thing a separation agreement cannot provide is a divorce.  Only a court can provide that.

If you have a signed separation agreement, Guy Hunter knows a lawyer who will help you do an uncontested divorce very cheaply. His name is Adrian Shaikh and his number is 416-739-1106.  He works quickly and has a nice personality. He does the work cheaply but makes you go down to the courthouse to file the materials.

The decision of whether to negotiate a separation agreement or to go to court first, is an important one. Still, you can always switch to a court process if negotiations go nowhere, or you can enter into a separation agreement in the middle of a court application. Both are common. 

Many people want to try to finalize a separation agreement without using a lawyer at all.  This is usually a very bad idea, especially if you and your ex have thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets.  Your agreement is much easier to set aside if no Independent Legal Advice was provided. It is worth spending $1000 – $10,000 on lawyers to protect over $100,000  to $1 million in assets. 

Absolutely not.  It is extremely common for people to ask a lawyer to do this but it is prohibited.   

Our legal system is predicated on everyone having their own lawyer. There is a strong prohibition on lawyers putting themselves in a position where their duty to a client is conflicted by a duty to another client. Lawyers should not do this and neither should you. 

Generally, yes.  

A person who is jointly on title to a house is, prima facie (on the surface), entitled to half its value at the time it is sold, regardless of whether it was the matrimonial home at the time of separation.  

If you were married, and have now separated, both parties have the right to an equalization of NFP.  If this was never done, this might affect how much money you are entitled to overall, but does not affect your right to claiming your proper interest in the home.

The facts surrounding how you got to become a joint owner, whether you actually contributed your own money or were gifted a half interest by your spouse, would be relevant considerations.   They might give the other spouse a right to some or all of your half interest by way of resulting or constructive trust. (Cross reference to property headings in website……)

Further a joint owner who is not living in a property they jointly own can also be entitled to something called occupation rent.   If you seek occupation rent, however, you should not wait a few years to claim it. The courts generally do not grant retroactive occupation rent to individuals who do not claim it for many years.

It depends.  If there are no major issues relating to children it should cost, about $1500.00 plus HST plus Disbursements. If you have already been separated over 1 year and have no children it should take 3-6 months. If you have children normally you can not get your divorce until other side agrees or there is a fair arrangement for child support is in place. 

Great question.   It depends.   Married couples have a legal right to occupy the “matrimonial home” which is the residence you and your spouse ordinarily lived in at the breakdown of the marriage.  If you leave, you may give up that right.

Assuming you have no children, theoretically no other rights but the right to occupy the matrimonial home, are negatively affected by leaving. However,  it might affect what is called the separation date, which is relevant to a series of things including when a child or spousal support obligation might begin as well as the calculation of NFP (Net Family Property). Practically, it might also affect your ability to stop a sale of the matrimonial home, but most people who move out do not oppose the sale of the matrimonial home.

It is wise to talk to a lawyer so that they can discuss with you the potential implications of moving out based on the actual facts of your case, as well as your personal priorities. Many people may need to move out for psychological reasons  because they simply cannot stand living with their former spouse anymore. While this is a valid consideration, there are many others too. 

This varies a great deal.   Usually, it costs between $1500.00 and $5,000.00 but it depends a lot on the amount of money at stake, the personalities of the people trying to reach the agreement, the negotiating styles of the lawyers, how fulsome the sought disclosure is and how hard it is to access and provide that disclosure.

Guy Hunter charges $300.00 per hour plus HST and would ask for a first retainer of $1250.00 to $1500.00 if he is drafting the first version of the separation agreement.   If Financial Statements are advisable, as they are with longer marriages where there is property at stake with a total value of over $100,000.00 and where one party is getting a very good deal under the agreement, you should at least double that figure. 

This is very variable: Guy Hunter usually requires a first retainer of between $3955 and $5,000.00 to start a Superior Court Application where property and custody , access and child support are in issue. This is usually enough to get all the preliminary documents prepared, served and file. It usually does not cover the first court appearance which will likely cost another $1,500.00-$2,000.00. This is not a quote of a final price. 

In most cases, yes. 

It’s very important to offset your obligation to sponsor someone that you have agreed to in your immigration documents with a domestic contract that sets out each parties rights. It is particularly important to have pre-nuptial agreement if you are bringing a house into the marriage which could end up becoming the matrimonial home , because otherwise you will not be able to deduct its value at the time of separation. 

No. Not respect to property or the matrimonial home.  Custody access and child support are very similar, however whether you were married or not.

Unmarried couples can not take advantage of the Net Family Property regime under Part I of the Family Law Act, nor the right to remain in the matrimonial home under Part II of the Family Law Act. Unmarried spouses mainly have no right to the other spouse’s property on separation , except to make trust claims [link this back to s6 of the Family Law Act in the table of contents] 

With respect to custody, access and child support the right of the married and unmarried are very similar [Guy to check] law if unmarried can or can not take advantage of maximum contract principle under s16(10) the divorce act. 

With respect to spousal support the rights are similar but different. Marriage, is, among other things, a contract. This gives you a contractual basis for spousal support post-separation.

On the other hand, the courts have imported the spousal support case law, under the Divorce Act to common law couples, so there is a lot. 

Getting legal advice from an employment law lawyer right away is very important.

There are many variables which determine what you should do. You should explain to an employment law lawyer how long you worked at a position, your age, what responsibilities you had, and what the job market is like for a similar job at a similar rate of pay.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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It is important for the lawyer to know what your objectives are. Do you want to be rehired? Do you want compensation? Are you suffering from an illness? Did it arise from the workplace? Were you a victim of workplace harassment or discrimination?

The advice a lawyer will give you and the strategy you take will depend on your goals.

DO NOT SIGN ANY AGREEMENTS WITH YOUR FORMER EMPLOYER UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE SPOKEN WITH A LAWYER. If you do that could seriously curtail your rights to sue or seek better compensation..

IN MOST CASES, DO NOT MAKE AN APPLICATION TO THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR AS THAT COULD REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU WOULD OTHERWISE LIKELY BE PAID BY THE EMPLOYER FOR “REASONABLE NOTICE.” There are instances where it is OK to do so. Examples would be where you immediately find new employment at similar or greater rate of pay.

You should seek legal advice from a lawyer. Many lawyers, including myself, provide a half hour of free legal advice.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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The deadline, often of about 1 – 2 weeks, for a response to respond to a severance package offer is totally arbitrary and not enforceable at law. Normally, employers give you a short deadline so that they can “close your file”.

Normally you have two years from the day you have been told you will be terminated to start a lawsuit. Any short-term deadline of a week or two weeks during which you are asked to accept an offer is unenforceable and unimportant.

It depends. Usually non-unionized employees, are entitled to “reasonable notice.”

The calculation of reasonable notice is “more of an art than a science.” Generally speaking, the older you are and the more years you have worked for an employer, the more months of notice you’ll be entitled to. Note that the courts think in terms of months, whereas the Employment Standards Act specifies a week for every year of employment, to a maximum of 8 weeks for ESA notice (and more for statutory severance, which is available for employees who worked at least 5 years for employers and have payrolls in excess of $2.5 million)..

Other factors the courts look at in determining the number of months pay you are entitled to include how specialized your training is, how many employees you supervise. Other factors could include if you have any illnesses and/or disabilities that will make it more difficult for you to find work.

Generally you are entitled to the same total compensation per month as you enjoyed with your former employer at the time of your dismissal, inclusive of benefits and bonuses.

For example, if you were making $60,000/year and had dental/medical benefits, you would be entitled to $5000/month, plus benefits for the total number of months of reasonable notice. In most cases, if you got a bonus every year, you would be entitled to the bonus after your firing if the reasonable notice period would extend passed the qualification date for the bonus in past years.

It is very important to understand that the courts are much more generous than the government in terms of the amount of money you are owed on dismissal.

In almost all cases you are better off with a lawyer than the Ministry of Labour. YOU MUST BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO MAKE A CLAIM FOR EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS ACT MINIMUMS OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR RIGHT TO COMMON LAW NOTICE WHICH IS ALMOST ALWAYS WORTH MORE MONEY.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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It depends. It makes sense to review the terms of the settlement or severance package with an employment lawyer before agreeing. See severance package assessment.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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Many larger employers like Banks often make what Guy Hunter calls “low-end reasonable” offers to their employees at the time of termination or dismissal. Whether the offer is enough often requires the employee and their lawyer to guess how quickly the dismissed employee can find new work.

Very frequently the employer’s offer will cut the employee off of continued benefits with the workplace insurer long before a court would do so.

It may also be important to know if the employee signed a document when they were hired

It depends.

Most cases settle without the need to start a law suit. $1500.00 to $2500.00 is a common range for fees to negotiate an increase in your settlement package. Guy Hunter will also usually recommend you ask for a reference letter as part of the package.

Most large employers will be low end reasonable in their negotiations early on, but ultimately management is free to be difficult if they so choose.

With smaller employers, who have less employees, it is not uncommon that they will be less willing to be reasonable, which will require more work. But in those cases, Mr. Hunter is very good at protecting you against negative cost consequences. See

Like many employment lawyers, Guy Hunter provides a free half hour consultation in which he advises you of what your case is worth.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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Guy Hunter’s rate is $300.00/hour to $400.00/hour plus HST.

Guy Hunter’s clients usually pay him about $1,500.00 to $2,500.00 and get an increase in their compensation entitlements above the employer’s preliminary offers of usually between $9,000.00 to $25,000.00. (The amount of the increase in settlement monies is often dependent on what the reasonable notice damages would be. So older and more long service employees usually have a right to more pay.)

He usually asks for $1,250.00 as a first retainer to begin negotiating a better package for you. This will cover roughly the first 3 hours of his time.

Over 80% of the employment law cases Guy Hunter settles result in a large net benefit to the client. Often 3 to 10 times what you spend on Guy Hunter.

Most frequently after going back and forth with a few demand letters, the matter can settle.

If the matter must be litigated, Guy Hunter will encourage most clients to make a reasonable offer early to protect them from being responsible for the other side’s legal costs.

In the 4 most recent times Guy Hunter had to take an employment matter to trial, the employer was ordered to pay between $25,000 and $45,000 of his client’s legal costs on top of what the employer had to pay in damages to the Plaintiff.

See Legal Cost Awards obtained by Guy Hunter

One of the most common things Guy Hunter does for people who are dismissed is to help them ameliorate (i.e. increase) their settlement package.

Most frequently employment law matters settle with 3 – 8 letters going back and forth between lawyers before any law suit is launched.

This is a tricky area legally, emotionally and professionally. The answer will depend on the facts, your goals, the kind of harassment, the nature of your employer and how the harassment is affecting your mental health. It makes sense to get advice from a lawyer, a career coach and, if helpful, a doctor or mental health professional.

We lawyers tend to take a rights approach and will usually encourage you to bring forward a complaint with the employer, the Ontario Human RIghts tribunal, the Ministry of Labour or in the courts. The kinds of remedies available to you differ greatly. You need to consider if you are seeking justice, monetary compensation, a change in behaviour and whether you wish to leave the employment or stay in the job, but perhaps get transferred to another area.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation on how best to approach this situation.

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Legally: Sexual and racial harassment are clearly prohibited under the Ontario Human Rights Code and employers have a duty to investigate any harassment allegations. Until recently, some other forms of harassment experienced in the workplace may not have been taken seriously from a legal perspective. That changed with amendments to the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act which included prohibitions for

“workplace harassment” defined as

(a) engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome, or

(b) workplace sexual harassment; (“harcèlement au travail”)
“workplace sexual harassment” was also defined to mean:
(a) engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace because of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, where the course of comment or conduct is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome, or
(b) making a sexual solicitation or advance where the person making the solicitation or advance is in a position to confer, grant or deny a benefit or advancement to the worker and the person knows or ought reasonably to know that the solicitation or advance is unwelcome; (“harcèlement sexuel au travail”)
“workplace violence” was also defined and prohibited under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
There are a series of decisions that you need to make and usually it is best to consider them before you make formal allegations of workplace sexual harassment or assault.

Yes it does. This is especially true if the hiring document has specific clauses about what your rights are on a termination or dismissal. Often the courts will simply interpret those provisions based on the language in the document.

You should bring a copy of the hiring document to your first consultation with a lawyer so they can look at it.

Usually a hiring document’s termination provisions will limit the amount of money that the employer has to pay you on dismissal to close to the Employment Standards Act minimums.

There are a number of ways to set aside an employment contract so that it is not enforceable and does not restrict your rights to greater compensation.

An employment law lawyer can assist you with making those arguments to your employer, or if necessary, in court.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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Not in all cases, no. In most cases some negotiation will be well worth the effort. It may be wise to have a lawyer do so, particularly where the amounts in dispute on a monthly basis are large and or there are other claims or issues, such as human rights claims, health issues or a return from maternity leave, etc.

It is advisable, however, to seek a lawyer’s advice before deciding if you can negotiate an increase in your severance package on your own.

Guy Hunter has very frequently encouraged employees to negotiate their own package with the employer if they feel comfortable doing so.

Guy Hunter may be reached at 416-856-4179 or 416-901-4179 for a free ½ hour consultation

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The advantage in not using a lawyer is you do not have to pay the lawyer any money, so you keep 100% of any increase you might get.

It is not usually wise to negotiate a package without a lawyer in certain circumstances such as:

You have other claims such as a health problem, or human rights issue which must be dealt with carefully in your communications with the employer;
You are very emotional about the firing;
You do not want to talk to the employer or their HR department;
The severance offer is complicated and provides different dates for end of pay and end of benefit coverage
You are claiming Constructive dismissal.

You may also be required to sign a release through the process which causes you to be responsible for any tax implications or EI clawbacks under the settlement. This is something lawyers may understand better than most non lawyers.

Very frequently Guy Hunter hears this from employees who have not been fired but who fear their firing or dismissal is imminent. They have a manager, often a new manager, who they believe is trying to get rid of them.

The bad news is non-unionized employees have no right to a job. They can be fired or terminated at any time just because the employer does not like them, or wants to hire his nephew. These employees are, however, entitled to reasonable notice on dismissal.

The good news is it is very difficult for an employer to dismiss someone and not pay them reasonable notice or pay-in-lieu of notice. Firing an employee and paying them nothing is known as summary dismissal. In most cases, before this can be done by an employer, they must have given an employee multiple written warnings, or the employee has done something to really undermine the basic trust that must exist in the employee/employer relationship, like stealing from the business.

If you believe the employer or someone at your workplace is out to get you you should talk to an employment lawyer. Some kinds of employer or co-employee conduct is prohibited, for example if their motivation is because they do not like you because you are gay, or dark-skinned, or older, or based on another prohibited ground under the Human Rights Code. Some kinds of employer or co-worker conduct that you may find offensive or upsetting may be totally acceptable at law. A lawyer can help you know what kinds of employer actions are open to challenge by an employee, and which kinds of employer actions are acceptable at law.

Generally, if you are asked to do something by an employer that is reasonably related to your job, you must do it. You may not want to do a job in a certain way but an employer has the right to ask you to do it their way and your failure to do so could be insubordination, which can be grounds for summary dismissal. Summary dismissal is being fired without any right to pay.

So, if you honestly believe someone is out to get you at work, talk to an employment lawyer who can give you a better idea of whether the employer is within his or her rights to do what they are doing.